


Maybe It Means Something New

by McStupid



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Angst, Friends to Lovers, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Nightmares, Or at least Sokka does, Pre-Zukka, Soft Boys, and just a taste of zukka at the end, and zuko is my emo son, because its zuko, i dont know how to tag lol, i just love sokka sm, the Gaang finds out about Zuko's scar, this is my first fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-23
Updated: 2020-11-23
Packaged: 2021-03-10 08:22:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,660
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27680023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/McStupid/pseuds/McStupid
Summary: Set at the Western Air Temple. In which Zuko has nightmares, Sokka is sweet, and they're a lil gay.
Relationships: Aang & Katara & Sokka & Toph & Zuko (Avatar), Katara & Sokka (Avatar), Sokka/Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 16
Kudos: 478





	Maybe It Means Something New

Sokka had had a good life in the South Pole. Really, he had. Even after the Fire Nation… well, you adapt. And he had still been surrounded by his community, and all the stewed sea prunes he could ever hope to eat, and he had Katara and his Gran-Gran. Quite honestly, traipsing around the world as an international fugitive was really not how he had planned to spend his teenage years, but the universe loved to fuck with him. He had years of anecdotal proof that if something was going to go wrong for him, it would. 

Like right now. 

They had finally found a safe place to sleep for the night, Sokka’s sleeping bag was warm, and his belly was actually full for once. But he couldn’t sleep, because his mind wouldn’t shut up about Zuko and how fucking soft his hair was and how fucking brave he was and how he was clearly so fucking desperate to show kindness and to be accepted by the group. And to be honest… Sokka liked him. 

Except… Katara couldn’t accept him. And of course, Sokka understood. How could he not? But it was starting to wear on him, this constant push-pull of choosing his family or his… future? No, not his future, Sokka mentally corrected himself. The future. The future of the world needed Zuko to teach Aang firebending. 

A small noise from the edge of the clearing jolted Sokka from his thoughts. He was immediately on edge and out of his sleeping bag, casting a wary glance behind him, where Toph snored in her earthen tent, Katara slept peacefully in her own sleeping bag, and Aang lay nestled into a slumbering Appa’s fur. He crept toward the edge of the clearing, one hand gripping his boomerang tightly. The sound came again, but it sounded like a wounded animal. The sound a lion-seal makes when she’s lost a cub- a keening so terrible that Sokka used to secretly plug his ears with wax when he had to hunt them for his village. 

He was so shaken by the noise that he almost tripped over its source- Zuko, his bundle of blankets pulled so far away from the fire and the group that he was almost in the trees. An outcast even in this band of outcasts. Sokka released his white-knuckle grip on the boomerang and stared down at the prince, a little helplessly. He twitched in his sleep, whimpering and whispering to himself. Zuko’s moppy black hair was damp with sweat.

“Please… please… my face… I’m sorry…” 

Sokka’s stomach clenched. Even if Zuko was Fire Nation, nobody deserved this. Sleep was supposed to be sacred, a time for resting while the Moon Spirit watched over you. He cast a glance up at Yue, hovering placidly above, as if watching to see what he would do. It used to hurt, being reminded of his greatest failure every time he looked up at the moon, but lately that wound had healed, and he found Yue’s constant presence soothing. Heaving a sigh, Sokka dragged his sleeping bag over to where Zuko lay and settled into it. 

“Hey, jerkbender,” Sokka murmured, fingers twitching. He felt like he should be holding Zuko’s hand- but that was crazy. “Wake up, Pretty Boy.”

A quiet gasp and a sniffle was the only answer he got.

“You awake?” Sokka tried again. What was he doing?

“Go away,” Zuko’s raspy voice cracked. 

“Nah,” Sokka shrugged, nestling into his sleeping bag, arms crossed underneath his head. “I’m happy here.” 

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Did I ask?” Sokka addressed the stars. “I just wanted to lay over here and look at the stars.” Zuko was silent save for a snuffling sound. Sokka’s heart bent. “Want to hear some Water Tribe legends about the stars?”

“Um... sure.”

And if Sokka whispered about the moon and the stars until the sky was tinged with pink, and if Zuko started the morning with a whispered “thank you, Sokka,” and if both boys spent the day in an exhausted haze… well, nobody said anything about it. 

But Sokka thought about it. A lot. 

He found himself watching Zuko, noticing the little things: how he tensed up with fire too near his face when he was sparring with Aang, how he always slept as far from the group as possible, how he stuttered and flinched and masked it all with a sharp word or a cool tone. It made him ache to watch. 

The next evening, Katara was kneeling beside the fire pit, bending the water out of a damp and soggy pile of twigs while Aang and Toph went off in search of dinner and Sokka pitched the tent. 

Zuko approached Katara carefully, stopping a few feet away. “If you want… do you want me to light the fire?”

“Least you can do,” Katara responded coldly, moving out of the way. Sokka paused his work but said nothing, watching quietly.

Zuko sighed but remained silent, sending a contained blast of fire onto the kindling, which caught at once and began to burn merrily. “Is there anything else I can help with?”

“Glad you could find a use for yourself that isn’t destructive. Fire probably can’t help us with anything else.... But thanks, really,” Katara sneered.

Yesterday, Sokka would have missed the flash of sadness and disappointment that crossed Zuko’s usually emotionless features and the way his shoulders hunched around his ears, but today he couldn’t take it. “Katara, stop it,” he blurted out.

Zuko and Katara both jumped in surprise. His sister whirled around to glare at him. “Have you forgotten-”

“Of course not.” Sokka’s mouth tightened into a hard line and he worked to keep his tone even. “I miss Mom every day. But he didn’t kill her. You need to remember that.”

“I remember everything- including how he spent years trying to murder us!” she shrieked. 

“You just want to be angry at this point and I-”

“I’m going to bed.” Katara interrupted furiously, hauling her sleeping bag to the other side of Appa, effectively slamming a door in his face. 

“You didn’t have to do that for me,” Zuko whispered, staring at Sokka like he was a brand new person. “I didn’t deserve that,”

“You’re my friend,” Sokka said simply, returning to his work.   
A few nights later, it happened again. Sokka was trying to get some sleep, when he heard Zuko again. The same low keening, the same quiet whimpering. Fucking hell, but Sokka was exhuasted. It took all his mental energy to force his eyes open. This time, Toph was awake, too. She peered out of her granite tent, hair a black frizz-ball around her head. 

“Toph,” Sokka murmured. “You heard Zuko?”

“Felt, more like.” Toph gestured to her dirty toes, which she wiggled in the grass for emphasis. “His heartbeat is like… I thought he was being attacked! ...He isn’t, right?”

“No.” Sokka peered into the darkness to where he knew Zuko had dragged his bedroll. “A nightmare, I think. I’ll talk to him... Just make sure he’s okay, you know? Can’t have Aang’s firebending teacher not be rested!” He babbled uncomfortably. 

Toph paused for a long time, and Sokka had the uncomfortable impression that she was reading his secrets through his heartbeat. “Goodnight then,” she replied abruptly, bending the earth into a door for her tent, which she closed in his face. 

Sokka cast a sour glance at his sleeping bag- it was so cozy in there and he was so tired- before trudging wearily over to the fitful prince, dragging his bedding behind him. 

Zuko was curled into a tight ball and he flinched away from Sokka’s light footfalls. “‘I’m sorry,” he mumbled, face pressed into his blanket and shoulders shaking.

“For what?” Sokka settled down to sleep beside him. Spirits, he could feel Zuko’s trembling through two layers of bedding. No wonder Toph had woken up.

“I’m being a bother.” Hiccup. “Not being strong enough.” 

Sokka puffed out his cheeks and paused for a moment, choosing his words with care for once. Now was not the time to fuck up and say the wrong thing. This line of thinking wasn’t exactly new to him, either. “That’s what I thought I had to do after all the men left our village to go fight in the war. I thought I had to be strong, like I wasn’t allowed to be sad about my parents. My dad left to fight in the war almost immediately after my mom died, and that was hard, honestly. I thought I had to be the man of the igloo, and that meant never crying. But... Being with these guys, I learned that you can be a man and you can also show emotions. I thought that I couldn't for a long time, though. And you’re not being a bother.”

A sniffle. “The Fire Nation doesn’t like weakness.”

“Neither does the Southern Water Tribe,” Sokka admitted. “But, I don’t think you’re weak.” Before he could think better of it, Sokka’s hand darted out of his sleeping bag and grasped Zuko’s trembling one. The prince flinched but did not pull his hand away. 

“Why do you like me?” Zuko couldn’t help but blurt out, wiping the last of the tears from his cheeks. “You shouldn’t be nice to me.”

Sokka hummed in thought, staring at Zuko, profile in the firelight. From this angle, all he could see was the raw scar that stretched from nose to ear. It looked angry and painful, and for the first time Sokka realized that Zuko’s left eye remained half-closed and his left ear was shriveled and small. Sokka noticed absently that the tears didn’t run in a straight line down Zuko’s face as they would on smooth skin, but rather traced the grooves and rivulets of his burns. He was beautiful. 

“I don’t know,” the Water Tribe boy finally answered. “I believe in second chances. You’re really trying. And... Aang is an idiot and he trusts fucking everyone-” they both snorted- “but I trust Toph’s judgement.”

“It… it doesn’t come easy to me. Being kind. I’m not like Aang.” Zuko admitted softly. What kind of person didn’t know how to be kind? A monster. 

“I know. But I think it means more when you have to work at it. You’re going against everything you’ve ever learned in your entire life to be here- of course it’s hard for you.” Sokka squeezed Zuko’s hand. “I’m glad you’re here, jerkbender.”

Agni, but Zuko’s chest felt tight at that. “Thanks,” he whispered. 

“What do you dream about?” 

The prince stiffened. “I don’t want to talk about it,” he replied coldly. (He didn’t let go of Sokka’s hand, though. It wasn’t important and Sokka definitely wasn’t going to analyze that later.)

Sokka wasn’t fazed. Nosy people, as a rule, do not get offended when other people tell them to mind their own business. “Some other night, then.” Zuko made a non-committal noise and ghosted his fingertips over the scar tissue covering his face, which gave Sokka a pretty big damn clue about the origin of his nightmares. “Does it hurt?”

Zuko didn’t feel like explaining the nightmares, the phantom pains, the way the delicate skin sometimes cracked and roughened. “Sometimes.”

“Okay,” was all Sokka said, rubbing his thumb in gentle circles on the back of the prince’s hand. “Do you want to hear the Water Tribe stories about the ocean spirit tonight? They’re my personal favorites.”

The next morning, Toph casted knowing glances at the pair of them during breakfast, and then pulled Sokka aside while Zuko took Aang off to practice firebending. “His heart rate dropped so fast when you went over there,” she told him, with no preamble. “What happened?”

“Nothing,” Sokka muttered, face heating up. “We just talked.”

Toph gave him a knowing glance but said nothing, merely causing the earth to trip him up as he started to walk away, giving a delighted cackle when Sokka stumbled over a suddenly-formed mound.

After that, Sokka started to drag his bedroll near Zuko each night, just in case. At first, Katara would make snide comments about snuggling with the enemy, but he got the feeling that either Aang or Toph said something to her, because eventually she stopped remarking on his sleeping arrangements. 

And it was nice. A little whispered conversation before one or both of them dropped off to sleep, swapping stories and legends. It seemed to Sokka that maybe Zuko was jerking awake with a cry on his lips less and less, and that he seemed happier and more alert during the day. 

But one night, of course, the nightmare came back. Zuko awakened with a gasp, flying to his feet almost before he was conscious, flames dancing on his fingers. He didn’t know where he was, but it smelled like a smoldering campfire. Zuko choked on the smoke and couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. His heart was going to beat out of his chest in terror. His scar burned. Ozai was nearby, Zuko knew it. 

“Woah, there, jerkbender,” a soft voice murmured behind him. Zuko tensed and whipped around, ready to bend at a moment’s notice. “It’s just me,”a sleep-rumpled Sokka reassured him quietly, looking thoroughly unconcerned about the fire still flickering in Zuko’s palms, aimed at his face. 

“Sokka?” Zuko whispered in bewilderment. “Is….. is my dad here? I...”

Something crossed the warrior’s face. “The only people here are your friends, Zuko. You’re safe.” 

Zuko crumpled in relief and sank to his knees in the middle of the pile of blankets he shared with Sokka, who gently reached forward to pull him into an embrace. For a while, the only sounds were Zuko’s low sobs and Sokka’s murmured assurances, whispered into Zuko’s inky bedhead, his scarred left ear. 

“He burned my face,” Zuko whimpered into Sokka’s damp tunic. “I was disrespectful, so he burned me.” A shuddering sob. “In front of everyone, my own dad melted my fucking face off. And everyone clapped, Sokka,” he hiccupped painfully, and Sokka’s arms tightened around him. “In the war room, I told his general he shouldn’t sacrifice a whole battalion of men... can’t disrespect the Fire Lord.”

Sokka tensed, and Zuko wondered if he was finally realizing how worthless he was, how he shouldn’t even be anyone’s teacher, let alone Aang’s. Zuko’s heart sped up. How could someone so... fucked up possibly teach the Avatar of all people? This was it- he would be kicked out of the group, the only place he’d felt safe since he had betrayed Uncle Iroh. His tears began to flow again and his breathing quickened. Stupid. So stupid, showing weakness like this. His father would burn the other half of his face off if he knew what a coward his son was being.

His fears were assuaged when Sokka hugged him closer. Was… was that a kiss he had pressed into the crown of Zuko’s head? “What the fuck Zuko?” He whispered fiercely. “Your father? Burned you on purpose? Spirits, Zuko! How old….?”

“I was thirteen,” Zuko sighed, curling into Sokka, feeling like a soggy washrag. “It was my punishment.”

Sokka growled. “That isn’t a punishment, Zuko.”

“The scar is to remind me- and the rest of the Fire Nation, I guess- what happens when you disrespect Ozai.”

Sokka’s arms tightened around him, and Zuko felt… safe? Loved, even? There was a pause, and then, “Maybe your scar can mean something else now.”

“Like what?” Zuko couldn’t help but ask.

“Like… courage, and standing up for what you believe in.” Sokka cupped his damaged face gently, so lovingly that Zuko wanted to cry all over again from the tenderness of it. He felt like his heart was going to explode out of his chest. “You’re so brave, and so good, Zuko.”

And when Sokka brushed his lips softly over Zuko’s, it felt like a new chapter. It felt like a home.


End file.
